Pedigree Dogs Exposed

I'd rather not make a comment about this other than to say I think everyone who cares about dogs should watch it.

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=44215931

World's first dog

I think the title of this article is a little presumptuous, but it does have some fascinating information.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27240370/

Dog Drinking

This is one of those things most people don't realize, but I've always found fascinating. Watch your dog a little closer next time he takes a drink and you can see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63Ch2pNkZwU

The Origin of the Dog Revisited

This is a fascinating paper written by Janice Koler-Matznick on some less familiar theories of the origin of the dog.

"The most widely accepted hypothesis of the origin of the dog, Canis familiaris, is that the dog is a domesticated gray wolf, Canis lupus. This paper reviews the evidence for this conclusion, finds many unanswered questions and conceptual gaps in the wolf origin hypothesis, and explores the alternative hypothesis that the most likely ancestor of the domestic dog was a medium-size, generalist canid."

For the complete paper, visit http://newguinea-singing-dog-conservation.org/Tidbits/OriginOfTheDog.pdf
You'll need a copy of Adobe Acrobat to view the paper.

Books

I haven't had a lot of free time to make any blog entries lately, so I thought I'd just mention a few books I've found very helpful. There are a lot of good books out there, but these are some of my favorites:

For the Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell
The Other End of the Leash by Patricia McConnell
How to be Your Dog's Best Friend by The Monks of New Skete
The Art of Raising a Puppy by The Monks of New Skete
The Hidden Life of Dogs by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas
The Intelligence of Dogs by Stanley Coren

Foods to Avoid

Veterinary & Aquatic Services Department, Drs. Foster & Smith, Inc.

Q: Which foods could be dangerous for my dog?

A: Some foods which are edible for humans, and even other species of animals, can pose hazards for dogs because of their different metabolism. Some may cause only mild digestive upsets, whereas, others can cause severe illness, and even death. The following common food items should not be fed (intentionally or unintentionally) to dogs. This list is, of course, incomplete because we can not possibly list everything your dog should not eat.

For the complete list, visit http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?c=0+1276&aid=1030.

Radio Interview

I was interviewed this morning for "The Woman's Show" on KFRU. The program will air this Saturday at 6:00 am and again on Sunday. They told me 7:00 pm, but the website says 6:00 pm, so I'm not quite sure.

Either way, check it out this weekend on KFRU, AM 1400

Choosing a breed

I had my Brittany in the store the other day and someone asked if I thought they should get a Brittany. I told her that a Brittany was not for everyone and it was important that you find out about a breed in comparison with your lifestyle and needs.

The Animal Planet website has a great survey that recommends a breed or breeds after you answer 10 questions. I would not run out and buy or adopt what this survey recommends right off the bat, but it's a good place to start your research.

Personally, according to the survey, I should have a Curly-Coated Retriever or a Spinone Italiano. Brittanies have a low 90% compatibility for me, but I can't imagine having another breed.

Visit Animal Planet and try it out.

Dog Postures

This is something I wrote for my personal site several years ago and I think it is probably the most important information I have to share. This information was based on information in "The Intelligence of Dogs" by Stanley Coren. Re-reading it now, I notice that some of the terminology is inaccurate and flawed. However, I'll leave it for now and hopefully get it re-written in the near future.

As a general rule there are 7 postures that can tell a person how a dog is feeling:

1. The Play Posture.
This is characterized by the dogs front end being down and his back side being up. The tail is erect and most likely waging. The ears will likewise be erect and the dogs mouth may be open with his tongue exposed.

2. Relaxed Posture
This is indicated by the ears up and relaxed (not forward) and the tail down and relaxed. The mouth may again be slightly opened with the tongue exposed.

3. Alert Posture
This is seen in the ears being up and forward, the mouth being closed and the tail being held straight out but not bristled. The legs are tense and the dog leans slightly forward. You may also observe the dog raising and lowering his head. This indicates an unsure submissiveness with the lowering of the head and curious alertness trying to catch sight and/or scent of the intruder. Be sensitive to this dog's posture and approach slowly if you must approach at all.

4. Dominant Posture
The most obvious trait in this posture is the bristling hair most noticable in the shoulder area and the tail which will be raised. On closer inspection (take my word for it and don't approach this dog) the hair is raised all over the body. The dog's nose is wrinkled in this posture and the teeth are bared. The dog's ears are raised and forward and his stance will be slightly forward. The dog will probably be barking or growling but may not be.
DO NOT APPROACH THIS DOG! TURN SLIGHTLY SIDEWAYS TO THE DOG AND BACK AWAY SLOWLY WITHOUT LOOKING THE DOG IN THE EYES. EYE CONTACT IS CONSIDERED A THREAT OR CHALLENGE.

5. Defensive Posture
Just like people, no matter who you are or how you act there will be someone who doesn't like you.
This is seen in the dog's body being lowered, the ears back and the tail between the legs. The most obvious trait in this dog is also the hair being raised. When a dogs hair is on end he should be avoided at all cost. This dog can turn to dominance or aggression in an instant in an effort to protect itself.

6. Scared Posture
Looking at this dog you will notice the dog may not look directly at you for very long if at all, the body is lowered, the ears are back and the tail is down, again in an effort to make himself look as small and unopposing as possible. The dog make lick you and the corners of the mouth are back. The dog may also raise a paw. This is not always a trick the dog has learned, I believe it is a submissive gesture that makes it easier for the "antagonist" to turn the dog over into a totally submissive posture.

7. Submissive Posture
This is the most obvious because the dog will be on his back or side with the top legs raised exposing his belly and throat. This dog too will avoid eye contact, the tail will be between the legs, the corners of the mouth pulled back and ears and hair will be down and back. Dogs identify themselves by scent and to identify himself there may be an expulsion of urine. If you have a dog that does this, don't scold him because it reenforces your dominance and is actually encourageing the behavior. You should have a well behaved dog and maintain your authority, but the dog should feel confident and relaxed around you.

Just a pet?

This article is taken from the Calling All Pets website. When it comes to dogs, Dr. McConnell is one of my favorite resources. Be sure to visit her websites.
by Patricia B. McConnell, PhD

I don't know how many times I've heard that line: "just a pet." Breeders use it: "Well, I don't like his coat color, so I guess he'll just be a pet." Writers use it: "It's remarkable how much money the American public spends on 'just their pets.'" And most amazing to me, pet owners use it: "We just adore our cat, she's the greatest joy of our lives, but we can't afford to spay her because she's 'just a pet.'"

I like to think of myself as a reasonably patient person, but I'm losing patience with those three words: "just a pet." I suppose it's because of what I do. I have spent the majority of my life working with people whose pets either bring them joy, relaxation, and love, or anxiety, frustration, and sometimes pure terror. One client's new dog carefully makes sure that her children don't go across a busy highway. Another mutilated her daughter's face. "Just a pet?" I don't think so.

In spite of our embarrassment about the importance of non-human animals in our lives, the stakes are very high here. Dogs, cats, horses, rabbits and birds have tremendous power over us and our lives, and "just pets" should be considered the most valuable and important animals that we raise.

It is constructive, I think, to ponder why we are so ambivalent about our companion animals -- both attracted to and embarrassed by our love for them. Yes, of course, some of us look pretty foolish treating our dogs like human infants, but the majority of pet owners love their animals for themselves. I don't agree (as some argue) that most of us "use" pets to make up for a gap in our interactions with humans. Rather, our relationship with our pets is unique: they give us things that no human can provide. Close connections between different species are not at all uncommon in the wild and in spite of our obvious differences with other animals, we are not that far apart from the rest of biology (thank heavens). I consider our close relationship with dogs, for example, to be a miracle of evolution and natural selection.

So, I don't apologize anymore for crying in the vet's office over a sick animal. I no longer feel embarrassed at the intensity of emotion I still feel when I grieve over Bo Peep, my beloved sheep guarding dog. And I proudly sell "pet" puppies for the same price and with the same guarantee as working livestock dogs. Just a pet? Not to me, and not to literally millions of people worldwide, whose companion animals can enrich their lives and bring them a form of love, joy, and biological affiliation not available in any other form. So the next time you go to buy a companion animal, explain that it's not to be "just" a show dog, mousing cat, or work horse, but an integral part of your family, and thus, more valuable than money can buy.

Color and Acuity Differences between Dogs and Humans

by Jennifer Davis
Copyright © 1998

Most humans have the ability to see all the different colors of the electromagnetic spectrum, and consequently perceive all its' colors. [The color that is perceived is a result of the visual system, and not the spectrum itself.] Animals, such as the dog, are often thought of as being at a disadvantage by not being able to see all the hues of the spectrum. Evolutionarily however, the dog and the human each developed the visual system that worked best for them. Humans have depended on their diurnal ability and a sense of color throughout time to help them find food. Dogs on the other hand, were not originally diurnal animals, until humans domesticated them. Consequently, the ability to see at night was originally more important to the dog than color. After all, their prey is often camouflaged with the surroundings, so they are unable to rely on color vision cues as heavily as humans do to find food.

The retina of the eye is lined with both rods and cones in humans and dogs. The rods are much more prevalent in both species, but even more so in the dog than the human. The rods are adapted to work best in low light and are used for motion detection. The central retina of the canine eye contains about 20% cones, while humans have an area of 100% cones called the fovea. The cones work best in mid to high levels of light and have the ability to detect color.

Humans are believed to have three different cone types, a trichromat, while dogs have two, a dichromat. Each cone contains a photopigment that is maximally sensitive to a separate wavelength of light. These photopigments are what makes color vision possible. A human's three cone types are maximally sensitive at 445 nm, 535 nm, and 570 nm respectively. The canine cones are maximally sensitive at 429 nm and 555 nm.

The fact that dogs have two different types of cones does not mean that their brains have the ability to interpret the information that the rods and cones send. To determine what colors a dog can see, behavioral studies can be done. One such study conducted by Neitz, Geist and Jacobs involves three colored squares being placed in front of a dog. By training the dog to pick the odd colored square of the three, the researcher is able to guess what colors the dog can see. The question that then arose was if the dog was choosing the panel for it's color or due to it's brightness. It was found by use of different brightnesses for the squares that the dog was indeed choosing the square for the color and not brightness cues. Through these studies it has been suggested that an average dog sees similar to a human deuteranope, a person that is red-green colorblind. Consequently, the dog's world consists of yellows, blues, and grays. When a human perceives a red object it appears as yellow to the dog, while a green object appears as white, a shade of gray. This white region, also called the neutral point, occurs around 480 nm in visual spectrum. According to the electromagnetic spectrum, 480 nm would appear as a greenish-blue hue. All wavelengths longer than the neutral point are indistinguishable from one another to the dog and would all appear as yellow.

Visit http://www.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/LA/davis2.htm for the rest of the article.

Researchers Peg East Asia as Origin of Co-Domestication

By Rick Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 21, 2002; 4:05 PM


Research has long indicated that all dogs, from prissy Pekingese to slobbering St. Bernards, are the domesticated descendants of wolves. But scientists have tussled like puppies over the question of when and where the transition from wild carnivore to newspaper-toting pet began -- and why, exactly, dogs and humans have gotten along so well.

Now a new analysis of dog DNA pegs East Asia as the place where wolves and people began their dance of co-domestication -- not Europe or the Middle East, as some experts have contended. The work also suggests that domestication began about 15,000 years ago, much more recently than some had previously concluded.

But it's an accompanying study, also being published today, that has dog-lovers really panting. In the first direct comparison of its kind between dogs and chimpanzees, dogs demonstrated an uncanny ability to interpret human communicative cues -- gleaning information from subtle hand gestures and even getting the meaning of a human glance -- while the brainy chimps remained clueless to what was going on.

It may not be news to dog owners, but now it can be said with scientific assurance: Centuries of selective breeding has created an animal that in some respects, at least, understands us even better than our closest primate cousins.

"It looks like there's been direct selection for dogs with the ability to read social cues in humans," said Brian Hare, a Harvard biological anthropologist who led the behavior study.

Scientists suspect that wolves hung around human hunter gatherers long before the first one was domesticated, perhaps in the hope of stealing scraps of food. Eventually, the theory goes, humans cajoled a few to help with hunting or guarding and began breeding those that proved to be the best companions.

Domestication, of course is a matter of perspective. Some experts suspect that a few clever wolves initiated the process, recognizing that free food and a warm home beats living in the wild. But while scientists may never know the motivations behind domestication, they have doggedly pursued its timing and location.

Bones from small, dog-like animals have been found in human archaeological sites dating back 100,000 years or more, but specimens older than about 10,000 years old are difficult to identify accurately, said Peter Savolainen of the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, who led one of three dog studies appearing in today's issue of the journal Science. "You can't say for sure whether they're from dogs or small wolves."

Savolainen's team counted the number of mutations within a particular stretch of so-called mitochondrial DNA in 654 dogs from Europe, Asia, Africa and Arctic America -- the largest such study ever conducted. Working with the common but not universally held understanding that such mutations occur about every 20,000 years, they calculated that domestic dog DNA first appeared about 15,000 years ago -- and perhaps 40,000 years ago in the less likely event that domestication started with just one or a few wolves rather than many.

That's much more recent than the 100,000 years ago that scientists had concluded from a smaller DNA study published five years ago. The difference is significant because dogs were clearly widespread around the world not much later, and such a rapid dispersal would be added evidence of their popularity and utility.

But some researchers said they don't trust the new numbers, in part because such calculations are inherently dependent on so many iffy assumptions. "I think it's still an open question," said Robert K. Wayne, the University of California, Los Angeles, evolutionary biologist who oversaw the older study that suggested a more distant date.

Savolainen's group also found that dogs from East Asia had the highest level of DNA variability, suggesting that canid domestication originated around there -- probably in eastern China or perhaps Japan. But this finding too faces challenges. Italian researchers have recently gathered evidence pointing to Italy as being home to the world's first dogs. And other scientists have said they stand by their claim that dogs first appeared in the Middle East -- perhaps in Israel or Iraq, in conjunction with the first agricultural settlements.

Whenever it happened, it was long before most of today's familiar breeds came into being. The vast majority of today's 400-plus breeds -- about 150 of them formally recognized by kennel associations -- did not come into being until intensive breeding came into a vogue a few hundred years ago.

In a second study, scientists present DNA evidence that even New World dogs are the offspring of East Asian wolves and are not the descendants of native American wolves. The first dogs in the New World apparently came along as newly domesticated companions when humans migrated from Asia to North America about 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.

"That tells us that dogs were very important," said Jennifer A. Leonard, now at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, who helped lead the study. "Remember, these are hunter gatherers in the Stone Age. They don't have a lot of stuff, and dogs have to be fed and to some extent taken care of."

No one knows what role dogs played so early in their domestication, Leonard said, but it may have included transportation as sled dogs, protection of food, or hunting assistance. There is also evidence that they played an important role in early Native American religious culture.

In a third report, researchers describe several experiments aimed at unveiling the biological and behavioral essence of the human-dog relationship. One experiment presented dogs and chimps with two boxes, one empty and the other containing a treat. The team tested the animals' ability to read hints from a person as to which box had the food -- hints such as pointing at the food box, tapping it, or even simply glancing at it. Dogs almost always picked up on the signals and picked the right box, while chimps performed no better than chance. (Experimental controls ensured that dogs were not simply smelling the food.)

Hare, the Harvard PhD candidate who designed the study after trying it out on his own two dogs at home, acknowledged that chimps perform better than dogs on many kinds of tests. "But in this simple task involving . . . communicative signaling with humans, chimpanzees fall flat on their faces," he said.

In a separate series of experiments comparing test performance in human-raised puppies, kennel-raised puppies, dogs, and wolves, Hare and his colleagues concluded that this communicative talent is not learned from human interaction during puppyhood and is not found in wolves. That suggests it has become an innate trait among dogs -- the result of individual dogs having been selected and bred over hundreds or thousands of years on the basis of their ability to "understand" their masters.

Raymond Coppinger, a professor of biology and dog expert at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., called the experiments a good start at understanding the dog mind, but emphasized that such experiments are difficult to design well.

"This argument about cognition and who has it has been going on since Aristotle," Coppinger said. "The thought that one article is going to answer it now for dogs is, well, you fill in the ending."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company